Clytaemnestra

            "Agamemnon" is the first play in a trilogy of plays called "The Oresteia," written by Aeschylus. In this story, there is one character who the audience tends to side with and have sympathy for. This character is Agamemnon's wife, Clytamestra. Clytamestra's daughter, Iphigenia, was sacrificed by Agamemnon so that he could obtain favorable wind to carry the Greek fleet to Troy ( The country with which he had conflicts.) During is ten year long absence, Clytamestra takes on Argisthus, Agamemnon's cousin, as her lover. Also during this time, Clytamestra plans to murder Agamemnon with ruthless determination and feels no guilt after his death. Clytamestra's infidelity and lack of a pure heart leads us to ask one of the play's central critical questions: should the audience support Clytamestra? Is she a wronged woman seeking revenge, or a murdering adulteress? Clytamestra has been having an affair with another man and she has used deception in order to gain favor and sympathy from those around her. She also, in cold blood, murders her husband and his innocent slave and mistress, Cassandra, who was kidnapped from Troy. These facts are all evidence supporting the truth that Clytamestra was not innocent, but that she was a murdering adulteress.
             When Clytamestra is informed that the war over Troy was won, she quickly and deceptively acts thrilled. She makes claims about how much she missed her husband and how faithful she has been to him. She says, " May he return to find her true at hall, just as the day he left her, faithful to the last." (601-602) Clytamestra knows that she has not been faithful, but she also knows that it is right and favored in society's eyes when a woman is faithful. She has slept with Agamemnon's cousin, aegisthus, for the past ten years and is very guilty of infidelity. Clytamestra tries to hide her adulteress ways, because she knows it does not reflect well on her and her "innocence.